Truck driver can't make enough money making deliveries to continue to send his son to a good school so he takes up boxing. Finding he's pretty good at it he finds his life complicated by wine women and song as success makes it difficult for him to do the right thing. Good melodrama isn't something I really would have ever sought out but as something to sit on the couch and watch during a heavy December snow storm. It's the sort of story that you've seen a couple of dozen times before in a variety of other films, but at the same time its done well enough that when you happen upon it you don't mind going along for the ride. Enjoyable if unremarkable.
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dbborroughs21 December 2009
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horn-514 November 2005And acquires a son in the process. Widower Gary Farrell (Buster Crabbe) can't afford, on his $45-weekly salary as a truck driver, to send his young son, Mickey (Donald Mayo), to a high-priced military school and decides to enter heavyweight-boxing tournament in an effort to win the $500 prize money.
He wins and turns to boxing as a career and, in a short while (or 20 minutes running time)and under the guidance of "Pop" Turner (Milton Kibbee), becomes a Contender for the Heavyweight title.
Newspaper reporter Linda Martin is attracted to Farrell but he is paying more attention to the flashy Rita Langdon (Julie Gibson), who introduces him to night clubs, late hours, drinking, roistering and whatever other attractions the PCA code of the time allowed flashy blondes to introduce into the life of up-and-coming contenders.
Despite the warnings posted by Linda, Pop, Mickey and Biff Benham (Glenn Strange), his old cab-partner in the truck-driving business, Farrell continues to abuse all the training rules but still wins bout after bout.
Arline Judge, past her prime vamping days (on-screen, at least), plays the mousey role here, Linda the Social Worker, instead of the Rita-type role she usually played. -
You can go through the list of boxing or prize-fighting movies and find tons of films better than this D-grade programmer with Buster Crabbe as a widower who turns to prize fighting to support his son, but you'll also find a lot to enjoy here. He starts off likable enough, but like many a hero of films like this gets in over his head. Arline Judge is the sensible reporter who befriends him and his son (Donald Mayo), but for some reason, Crabbe ends up with the cold society débutante Julie Gibson who mixes with Mayo like oil does with vinegar.
As fast as he rises, he also falls, and of course, the society snob gets bored, which leads to a violent confrontation. Don't expect anything earth-shattering in a decade of classics like "Body and Soul", "The Set-Up" and "Champion", just a father/son drama where the father's occupation simply happens to be fighting. -
While it was very nice to see the very athletic Buster Crabbe play a more physically demanding role (since he was an Olympic champion swimmer before he took up acting), unfortunately, this PRC production was too riddled with every conceivable cliché to make it more than a time-passer.
Crabbe plays a nice guy whose son is a cute guy in an expensive military school. Because he really can't afford to send the kid there and he's a widower, he decides to take up boxing. While he does great, naturally the clichés abound--as he takes his eyes off his kid and the nice girlfriend. Instead, like 1000 other boxing films, he meets THE BAD GIRL and develops a swelled head--until ultimately receiving his totally expected redemption. There is not one surprise to this film and considering PRC was an ultra-cheapie film maker, it earning a 4 is actually a bit of a surprise--normally their films aren't THAT good! Well acted but a 100% recycled plot.